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Michelle Williams has opened up in an emotional discussion about her relationship with late ex-boyfriend, Heath Ledger.
On Monday, the Dawson’s Creek alum was a guest on an episode of the Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard podcast, where the two spoke about their experiences with Ledger before his death in 2008.
“I feel obligated to say that I knew him a little bit when he was getting sober, and I don’t know that I’ve ever fallen in love with somebody so quickly,” Shepard said about the The Dark Knight actor. “This is one of the most special boys I’ve ever met, and I can feel the weight of the world on him in a very special way that kind of broke my heart. I was very, very sad, and I thought he was just so special.”
“So special, so special, thank god there’s Matilda,” an emotional Williams admitted, mentioning her now 19-year-old daughter that she shares with her late ex-boyfriend. Ledger died of an accidental overdose several months after he and Williams broke up.
When Shepard described Ledger as “this heart here that’s just leaking out everywhere,” Williams added Ledger had “an incredible sensitivity.”
The two actors first met on the set of Brokeback Mountain, where they played husband and wife, and welcomed their daughter in October 2005 while on the press tour for the movie.
“We had a baby. But I suppose maybe it's a good thing about being young is that you don't have so much life experience that you can contextualize things,” Williams said. “So you're really just going with the flow.”
Revealing more about raising Matilda after Ledger’s death, Williams told listeners: “When I make mistakes in front of my daughter and own up to them and apologize, it teaches her to apologize and say, ‘Oops, Mommy, I’m sorry,’ and it’s not a big deal.”
“It’s a part of life, and we move on,” she continued. “No shame, no blame. You made a mistake? Beautiful. I made five already today.”
Since Ledger’s death, the Dying for Sex actor was briefly married to Phil Elverum in 2018 before marrying her current husband, Thomas Kail, in 2020. The couple shares a son named Hart, a child born in 2022, and a third child born last month.
Williams has previously spoken about Ledger’s death during a 2016 interview with Porter magazine. “Talk about a learning process,” Williams said about being a single mother at the time.
“I think, God, what would I say about it? I feel really sensitive about it and certainly did not expect to still be dating at 36 with an 11-year-old. This is not what I imagined.”
“In all honesty, for pretty much everything else, I feel like I’m a believer in not fighting circumstances, accepting where you are and where you’ve been.
She continued: “In pretty much all senses but one, I would be able to go totally down that line of thinking were it not for Matilda not having her dad.”
English (US) ·